Another person in the Volgograd region was convicted in a fraud case related to contracts for cleaning up illegal dumps in the Sredneakhtubinsky district.
Vitaly Sazonov, the former chairman of the Committee for Natural Resources of the Volgograd Region, was found guilty of misusing his power by signing documents for landfill clean-up work that was not actually done. The court had already convicted the director of the contracting company and the head of the state institution that ordered the work.
Vitaly Sazonov, the former chairman of the Committee for Natural Resources of the Volgograd Region, was sentenced to three years in a penal colony for exceeding his official powers when signing documents related to landfill clean-up. He was also banned from holding civil service positions for two years.
The contract to clean up 18 illegal dumps between the Volgograd State Institution “Directorate of Water Management Construction” and LLC “Greenlight” was signed as part of the regional project “Clean Country” in August 2018. The work was supposed to be done in the Sredneakhtubinsky district of the Volgograd region. The total amount of the contract was 455 million rubles.
After realizing that the contract couldn't be fulfilled, the director of Greenlight LLC, Alexander Firsov, proposed to the director of the DVS GKU, Mikhail Sitnikov, to create the appearance of successful fulfillment of the contract by burying the unremoved waste in the same landfills and covering them with soil. Firsov allegedly promised to fully complete the contract later. The head of GKU agreed to these conditions.
According to the court decision, Mikhail Sitnikov and Alexander Firsov misled Vitaly Sazonov, head of the Committee for Natural Resources, Forestry and Ecology of the Volgograd Region, regarding the full performance of the contract. Sazonov agreed to the proposal in hopes of receiving a positive assessment of his professional qualities and other official privileges for the timely execution of the project and the efficient use of budgetary funds.
As a result, the GKU VO “DVS” unreasonably paid LLC “Greenlight” 121.4 million rubles for work that was actually not completed.
Vitaly Sazonov fully pleaded guilty, whether he will appeal the verdict is still unknown.
The investigators believe that the organizer of the scheme is the entrepreneur and technical director of Greenlight LLC Mikhail Kalonkin, who is familiar with all the defendants in the case. He is accused of complicity in fraud (part 3 of article 33, part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). After the initiation of the case, he fled from the investigation, was put on the international wanted list, and then arrested for two months from the moment of actual detention. Mr. Kalonkin was detained at the beginning of July this year. The criminal case against him is still being investigated, he is in custody.
Alexander Firsov was arrested immediately after the initiation of a criminal case. He pleaded guilty, entered into a pre-trial agreement, and on January 11 of this year was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Also, the amount of damage in the amount of 102.19 million rubles was recovered from him in favor of the Committee of Natural Resources, Forestry and Ecology of the Volgograd Region.
Mikhail Sitnikov, director of the regional GKU “Directorate of Water Construction”, was arrested in early February last year. He also pleaded guilty and entered into a pre-trial agreement; in November last year, he was sentenced to a year and a half in a colony-settlement.
